Mycroft Vimes wrote:Best solution IMO is training your dog not to do it on walking pathways and then indeed letting nature take its course is by far the best and most environmentally friendly solution.

Anywhere dogs go is likely to be where people walk and children play. Ruined shoes and Toxocara aside, carnivores' poop attracts rats.

What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!

I used to work with a woman who had been blinded in one eye from something she caught from dog poo when she was a small child.

I wasn't advocating letting dogs poop and not picking it up in my earlier post, I was just suggesting that it was more logical than putting it into a bag and leaving it. The ideal thing is to put it into a bag and dispose of it properly.

Mycroft Vimes wrote:Best solution IMO is training your dog not to do it on walking pathways

My dog standard poopes in places either dedicated to dogs pooping or so far of the path,your shoes will be perfectly safe! (And when one of my dogs leaves something on a path or in a field designated for play and recreation i naturally will relocate the poo.)I just question spending quite a lot of resources in 'cleaning up'(it still has to go somewhere) when mother natures does it so much better and quicker when left alone.Also,besides all the undomesticated wildlife,there are quite a lot of horses and cats doing their business outside,will they be required to take bags with them,i wonder...

'It's just like crop circles. No matter how many aliens own up to making them, there are always a few diehards who believe that humans go out with garden rollers in the middle of the night-'

Tonyblack wrote:I used to work with a woman who had been blinded in one eye from something she caught from dog poo when she was a small child.

I wasn't advocating letting dogs poop and not picking it up in my earlier post, I was just suggesting that it was more logical than putting it into a bag and leaving it. The ideal thing is to put it into a bag and dispose of it properly.

That's Toxocara, a parasite that can live in the eye when transmitted to humans. I understood your post perfectly I was just disagreeing with Mycroft that to leave it is the best thing to do. Wherever the dog poops, rain can wash the parasites onto paths and into play areas. The best thing to do is to bag it and put it in the bin - not to do so is breaking the law anyway!

What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!

BTW, trying to police cat poo is obviously impractical, and they don't transmit Toxocara. Cat poo is only dangerous to unborn foetuses (Toxoplasma, a usually mild and common infection caught in ways other than contact with cat poo).

We used to have (dried) horse poo fights as kids. We'd build barricades and have massive fights. More than once I got sat on by one brother who'd smash it into my face. I rarely get sick, I think my childhood pastimes might've helped.